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Archaeologists and forensic scientists working with human remains recovered at Historic Jamestowne last summer reported Wednesday that their follow-up studies have turned up the gruesome first physical evidence of the cannibalism that took place during the Starving Time of 1609-10. Analyzing the skull of a 14-year-old English girl found in a refuse pit filled with butchered horse and dog bones, they discovered multiple evidence of sharp cuts and chopping blows aimed at the woman's cranium, cheeks and mandible. The location and number of the marks are consistent with the flesh and brain being removed, most likely for consumption. "This person did not know how to butcher an...

Related "Smithsonian Institution" Articles

Archaeologists and forensic scientists working with human remains recovered at Historic Jamestowne last summer reported Wednesday that their follow-up studies have turned up the gruesome first physical evidence of the cannibalism that took place during...

Nobody knows exactly when a nameless 14-year-old English girl met her end during the deadly Starving Time at Jamestown — or when she was butchered by a desperate fellow colonist driven to unthinkable extremes by hunger.
She was already forgotten when her...

Famed Smithsonian Institution forensic anthropologist Douglas Owsley, whose study of cannibalism and Native American scalping rituals made him indispensable to confirming the first physical evidence of cannibalism at Jamestown last week, has contributed...

Few archaeological finds have been as sensational as the first physical evidence of cannibalism unearthed at Historic Jamestowne in 2012 and announced in a riveting press conference at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History on...

Like a lot of other local landmarks on the Peninsula, Rice's fossil pit off Harris Creek Road in Hampton was nationally and even internationally known because of its high-profile links to the past.
Numerous times during the roughly 30 years it was...

— The first time Jane Rice ventured down into her in-laws' borrow pit off Harris Creek Road she was a recent bride who had little inkling about the extraordinary environment she was about to enter.
Stepped terraces descended dozens of feet into the...

Every Friday in Ticket, the Daily Press offers suggestions on things to do over the weekend and upcoming events to plan for. There are often lots more that won't fit into the print sections. So look here for Ticket Extras! online each Friday. This is a...

For as long as art historians have been writing about painting in the early South, it's been common to think of the region's artists as relatively independent and even isolated figures.
Many show up in the records as episodic visitors from Europe or...

A Smithsonian Institution scientist shrugged off claustrophobic working conditions Monday to recover the remains of a late-1600s skeleton buried under the floor of America's oldest standing English church. Scuttling into a shallow...

At the dawn of the television age in 1951, a young engineer named Ralph Baer approached executives at an electronics firm and suggested the radical idea of offering games on the bulky TV boxes.
"And of course," he said, "I got the...

Billionaire "Star Wars" creator George Lucas, who wants to establish a major museum to house his significant art and movie memorabilia collection, is considering Chicago as the location after plans for his $300 million Lucas Cultural Arts Museum...

As about 50 eighth-graders from New Jersey gathered around, Elizabeth White unzipped a large duffel bag.
"It's coiled like a big snake in there," said White, a park ranger.
The students helped remove the object. It was indeed moving but not in...

Admit it. The last time only time? you thought about Nebraska's biggest city was when Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning yelled "Omaha!" about 40 times in a playoff game last January. That was fun, sort of. Imagewise, pro sports haven't...

Atlantis is ready for its close-up.
The orbiter that made the final flight of NASA's shuttle program now is in a new $100-million home created for it at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. The 90,000-square foot attraction — called Space Shuttle...

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A historic archive documenting Alexander Graham Bell’s attempt in the early 1900s to build a kite-like aircraft that would allow humans to fly was pulled back from an auctioneer’s gavel in...

In naming Philippe Vergne, a seasoned career museum professional, as its new director, L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art has opted for fundamentals instead of glitz.
Vergne, 47, arrives with credentials that include more than 20 years running museums...

Philipp Kaiser, former senior curator of L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art, is stepping down after little more than a year as director of Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany, the German publication Express reported Wednesday.
In submitting his resignation,...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - This port city on the Mississippi River calls itself the birthplace of rock 'n' roll. Its credentials? The Memphis Recording Service, forerunner of Sun Studio, in 1951 recorded "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston & His Delta...

A spring break in the nation's capital is a rite of passage for some families, but if the airfare from the West Coast to the East has stretched your vacation budget, take heart. Many places are free, thanks to government funding (although the sequester...

As excitement builds for this week's opening of the Summer Olympics, many an armchair athlete may yearn to hop a transcontinental flight to London.
But if a trip overseas isn't in the cards right now, why not discover a taste of jolly olde England closer...